Town Talk: Women in Film Festival includes rising horror lover

With her horror movie La Quinceanera in the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, and others due, Mexico-born Vancouver Film School teacher Gigi Saul Guerrero said that, though potentially helpful, she's "scared of ghosts." Malcolm Parry / PNG

With her horror movie La Quinceanera in the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, and others due, Mexico-born Vancouver Film School teacher Gigi Saul Guerrero said that, though potentially helpful, she’s “scared of ghosts.”Malcolm Parry /
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ONE TO WATCH: The six-day Vancouver Women in Film Festival opened at VIFF Vancity Theatre with several of the program’s moviemakers present. Among them, 11-year Vancouver resident Gigi Saul Guerrero had her 2016-shot horror flick, La Quinceañera, screened on March 9. For opening-night celebrations, the Capilano U grad and Vancouver Film School teacher hurried back from L.A., where she’s directing another screamer, Into The Dark, to premiere July 4 on Hulu. To her Mexico City parents — a violinist-cellist-father and dancer-mother who forbade her to watch the kind of film she now makes — “A little demon was born,” Guerrero said gleefully. “Me! I am in love with horror movies.” Oddly, she is “scared of ghosts,” who you’d think would be invaluable as script consultants.

ALL YOU CAN EAT: Rather as Strasbourg geese produce paté de foie gras, Le Crocodile restaurateur Michael Jacob force-feeds diners once a year with a dish that reflects his native Alsace’s German rather than French cuisine. It is Choucroute Garnie au Riesling: sausages, salt pork, knuckles, bacon and ham hocks heaped over wine-sauerkraut, onions and spuds. That belly-buster was served at Le Croc when Alsatian winery principal Jean-Frédéric Hugel presented a scholarship to Okanagan-based Siobhan Detkavich. Named for his late father Etienne Hugel and Vancouver wine-trade veteran Werner Schonberger, the scholarship provides culinary and wine training in Alsace and enrolment in the Society of Wine Educators.

ON THE WING: With Iranian New Year’s Day, Nowruz, coming March 21, Persian Canadians reportedly raised $125,000 at the Neekoo Philanthropic Society’s eighth annual soirée. The committee head and LaStella winery co-principal, Saeedeh Salem, said it will fund grants for some 30 low-income students The event’s “angel” supporters were Hamid and Arya Eshgi. Her father, Daved Mowfaghian, has donated many millions to B.C. cultural, educational and medical facilities. L.A.-based soirée entertainer Rana Mansour’s latest song, Zan (Woman), seemed to reflect International Women’s Day and contemporary Iran: “I am the voice of our generation. Even if you bind my wings, I am more free than ever before … If you think your arms are strong, I will tear off this blinding veil … I will make the dark, black sky bright and full of stars.” Happy New Year, indeed.

The clock is ticking on Vancouver-raised former London brasserie owner Michael Parker opening an Italian-themed restaurant in Mount Pleasant.Malcolm Parry /
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ONE MORE TIME: Our Italian-restaurant honeymoon will continue in May when city-raised Michael Parker and a partner open the 120-seat-range Sprezza Tura at Kingsway and 11th Avenue. Lower Mainland franchises are planned. The name means “perfection without apparent effort,” said Parker, who reportedly spent 42 months checking 200 potential locales. His previous enterprise, the Hill Bar and Brasserie in London’s tony Belsize Park district, attracted showbiz celebs. One of them, Lord of The Rings star Sean Bean, strolled outside for a ciggie with Playboy centrefold model Nadia Foster, got stabbed in the arm and nonchalantly returned to finish his drink. That wouldn’t happen in Mount Pleasant, of course.

A memorial for Raincoast Books publisher Allan MacDougall lauded him for human conversations and encouraging those that involved his family dogs.Malcolm Parry /
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BEST FRIEND: Author-humorist Garrison Keillor wrote: “They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.” Many nice things were said about Raincoast Books president-CEO Allan MacDougall when a celebration-of-life reception jam-packed the Vancouver Lawn Tennis and Badminton Club on what would have been his 72nd birthday. Among them, son Peter recounted MacDougall’s charmingly characteristic reluctance to curtail the family dogs’ sniffing ceremonies with others encountered during walks. “He thought he was taking them away from personal conversations with their friends,” Peter said of his lucidly conversational father. As for less-fathomable pets, Keillor wrote: “Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”

The late Kenny Colman, here crooning to Irish TV actress Jane Purcell, is the subject, with son Chase, of a documentary movie titled Cool Daddy.Malcolm Parry /
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IT DOES MEAN A THING: City-based jazz-saloon singer Kenny Colman, who died in 2017, features in a new documentary film titled Cool Daddy. Produced by Relevision firm principals Roger Evan Larry and Sandra Tomc with Paul Armstrong, it shows the dying Colman both supporting and discouraging his long-neglected son Chase’s mid-life ambition to be a singer, too. Their interactions provide chastening advice to others who may become involuntary role models. As the stardom-balked Colman might have sung, It ain’t necessarily so.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Thursday was the anniversary of my arriving in Vancouver. Thank you, Canada, for the welcome and the opportunities you freely offered, and especially for continuing to do so for others.